Story 1: The Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey — Catastrophic Unprecedented Massive Flooding — Bring A Boat — First Responders Searching and Rescuing Those Trapped In Homes By High Water Levels — Mopping Up After Hurricane Now Tropical Storm Harvey — Flooding Will Continue Into Wednesday — Public Health Emergency — Have you ever seen the rain? — Who Will Stop The Rain — Videos —

Who’ll Stop the Rain

Long as I remember the rain been coming down.
Clouds of myst’ry pouring confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages, trying to find the sun;
And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.

I went down Virginia, seeking shelter from the storm.
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow.
Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder, still I wonder who’ll stop the rain.

Heard the singers playing, how we cheered for more.
The crowd had rushed together, trying to keep warm.
Still the rain kept pouring, falling on my ears.
And I wonder, still I wonder who’ll stop the rain.

The historic flooding that Tropical Storm Harvey unleashed on Houston will likely worsen as federal engineers release water from overflowing reservoirs to keep it from jumping dams and surging uncontrollably into the homes they protect, officials said on Monday.

Some 30,000 residents of the nation’s fourth-largest city were expected to be left temporarily homeless by Harvey, which became the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years when it came ashore on Friday near Corpus Christi, about 220 miles (354 km) south of Houston.

Stunned families surveyed the wreckage of destroyed homes along the nearby coast and roads that were not flooded were clogged with debris. Death estimates vary, but at least two people have been confirmed killed by the storm.

Harvey was expected to remain over the state’s Gulf Coast for the next few days, dropping a year’s worth of rain in about a week, with threats of flooding extending into neighboring Louisiana.

The FAA said that the Houston airport is not expected to reopen until 12 p.m. local time on Thursday.

In scenes evoking the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, police and Coast Guard teams have rescued at least 2,000 people so far, plucking many from rooftops by helicopter, as they urged the hundreds believed to be marooned in flooded houses to hang towels or sheets outside to alert rescuers.

Thousands of members of the National Guard, as well as state and local police were rushing in helicopters, boats and trucks to rescue people before waters rise again, with another 15 inches to 25 inches (38-64 cm) of rain expected in the coming days.

On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he was activating his state’s entire National Guard in response to the aftermath of the hurricane. Roughly 12,000 servicemen will be deployed to assist in ongoing search and rescue efforts.

Eighteen Texas counties have received the federal disaster declaration needed to widen financial help and secure the aid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in recovering from Tropical Storm Harvey, Abbott said.

The list includes Houston and other areas battered by Tropical Storm Harvey, such as Nueces and Aransas counties. People in those counties can start registering online and calling their insurance companies for assistance.

“We are just beginning the process of responding to the storm,” Abbott told a news conference in Corpus Christi, one of the coastal cities affected by the storm, which came ashore last week as a powerful Category 4 hurricane and triggered devastating flooding.

“We’ll be here until we can restore this region as back to normal as possible. … We need to recognize this is going to be a new and different normal for this entire region,” he said.

He said Texas had requested all the help it could get from the National Guard, and that efforts were being made to restore services, including power in areas that “desperately need it.”

Search-and-rescue missions were still going on in Rockport and Port Aransas, which were also hit hard by the storm, the governor said.

Harvey’s center was 90 miles (148 km) south-southwest of Houston on Monday afternoon and forecast to arc slowly toward the city through Wednesday, with the worst floods expected later that day and on Thursday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it was releasing water from the nearby Addicks and Barker reservoirs into Buffalo Bayou, the primary body of water running through Houston. Officials warned that would lead to more flooding.

“The more they release it could go up and it could create even additional problems,” Turner warned. The release was necessary to prevent an uncontrolled surge of water, which Turner said “would be exponentially worse.”

Torrential rain also hit areas more than 150 miles (240 km) away, swelling rivers upstream and causing a surge that was heading toward the Houston area, where numerous rivers and streams already have been breached.

Dave Holom, 44, manager of Big Tex Tree Nurseries, was one of many civilians who joined in the rescue effort on Monday.

“We can fit a lot of people in the back of this truck and it is tall enough off the ground to get safely through high water,” Holom said as he prepared to drive his 24-foot (7.3 m) long vehicle into a flooded neighborhood.

‘Not complaining, we’re alive’

About 5,500 people were in shelters as of Monday morning, city officials said, with FEMA Administrator Brock Long forecasting that as more than 30,000 people would eventually are expected to be placed temporarily in shelters.

Many area residents were left in limbo, wondering what remained of their flooded homes.

Regina Costilla, 48, said she and her 16-year-old son had been rescued from their home by a good Samaritan with a boat. She sat and worried until she was reunited with her husband and large dog, who had been left behind because they didn’t fit into the boat.

“I’m not complaining, we’re alive,” said Costilla. “When I saw the forecast of the storm I said I’ll be happy if we get out with our lives”

Houston did not order an evacuation due to concerns about people being stranded on city highways now consumed by floods, Turner said.

FEMA’s Long on Monday did not question the decision, saying the “evacuation of the city of Houston could take days, days, literally days.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who had suggested on Friday that people leave the area, on Monday told “CBS This Morning” that “the time for making that determination has passed, and (there’s) no need to for us to relitigate that issue right now.”

Trump visit

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to survey the damage, a White House spokeswoman said on Sunday. On Monday he approved an emergency declaration for Louisiana.

Pres. Trump will visit Corpus Christi on Tuesday 5 Hours Ago | 00:56

Trump, facing the biggest U.S. natural disaster since he took office in January, signed a disaster proclamation for Texas on Friday, triggering federal relief efforts.

Hurricane recovery efforts will be very expensive and said he would be talking to the U.S. Congress about it as he prepared for a trip to the storm zone, the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump lauded the efforts by Texans to extract storm victims from flooded areas of Houston and beyond after record amounts of rainfall from Hurricane Harvey.

“We’re dealing with Congress. As you know it’s going to be a very expensive situation,” said Trump.

Almost half of the U.S. refining capacity is in the Gulf region. Shutdowns extended across the coast, including Exxon Mobil’s facility in Baytown, the nation’s second largest refinery. About 13 percent of daily U.S. capacity was offline as of Monday morning.

The outages will limit the availability of U.S. gasoline and other refined products and push prices higher, analysts said. Gasoline futures rose as much as 7 percent on Monday.

Damages are not likely to be as extensive as Katrina, which killed 1,800 people in and around New Orleans, or Sandy, which hit New York in 2012, said a spokeswoman for Hannover Re, one of the worlds largest reinsurers. Those caused $80 billion and $36 billion in insured losses, respectively.

Ruinous Texas floods test Trump’s leadership

As Harvey pummelled Texas over the weekend, the White House released photos of the president — decked in a USA cap — huddling with aides to discuss the response to the storm

The floodwaters deluging Houston — America’s fourth largest city and a major global oil hub — also present Donald Trump with a significant long-term test of his presidential leadership.

Facing tropical storm Harvey, Trump plans to travel to “The Lone Star State” on Tuesday, a demonstration that he is on top of a disaster that is already posing a fierce challenge for local and federal responders.

The full impact of the ongoing storm is unknown, but up to 30,000 people are expected to need emergency shelter as — thanks to plant-shutdowns — gasoline prices surged four percent in early New York trade.

Since the crisis began on Friday, Trump has seized on his role marshalling the federal response, issuing a disaster declaration for Texas and neighboring Louisiana and deploying 8,000 officials throughout the flood zone.

During a busy weekend, the White House released photos of the president — decked in a USA cap — huddling with aides, liaising with cabinet secretaries to discuss what he called a “once in 500 year flood.”

A steady stream of tweets have sought to show that the president, who spent the weekend at the bucolic presidential retreat of Camp David, was well apprised and in control.

Vice President Mike Pence tried to reassure Texans that the White House’s focus would not be fleeting.

“We’re very confident that, working with the Congress, we’ll be there for the long haul,” he said. “We’ll see Houston all the way back and provide all of the appropriate support from the federal government.”

Army Corps releases water from 2 Houston dams; thousands of homes to be affected

By KARMA ALLEN

Aug 28, 2017, 4:31 AM ET

Emergency workers began releasing water into the Buffalo Bayou from two flood-control dams in Houston on Monday — a move that could affect thousands of area residents, officials said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it began to release water from the Addicks and Barker dams early Monday to prevent uncontrollable flooding of the Houston metropolitan area as water levels continued to rise rapidly from torrential rains released by Tropical Storm Harvey.

Engineers were forced to start the process earlier than previously announced because water levels in the reservoirs had “increased dramatically in the last few hours,” officials said early Monday, adding that the release would likely cause additional street flooding that could spill into homes.

This is the first time engineers have done this for flood control, officials said.

Creedence Clearwater Revival-Royal Albert Hall – 1970

Bruce Springsteen Inducts Creedence Clearwater Revival

Left-wing counterprotesters clashed with right-wing protesters and Trump supporters on Aug. 27 in Berkeley, Calif. Violence erupted when a small group of masked antifa and anarchists attacked right-wing demonstrators. (The Washington Post)

Jumping over plastic and concrete barriers, the group melted into a larger crowd of around 2,000 that had marched peacefully throughout the sunny afternoon for a “Rally Against Hate” gathering.

Shortly after, violence began to flare. A pepper-spray-wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself. A conservative group leader retreated for safety behind a line of riot police as marchers chucked water bottles, shot off pepper spray and screamed, “Fascist go home!”

All told, the Associated Press reported at least five individuals were attacked. An AP reporter witnessed the assaults. Berkeley Police’s Lt. Joe Okies told The Washington Post the rally resulted in “13 arrests on a range of charges including assault with a deadly weapon, obstructing a police officer, and various Berkeley municipal code violations.”

And although the anti-hate and left-wing protesters largely drowned out the smaller clutch of far-right marchers attending a planned “No to Marxism in America” rally, Sunday’s confrontation marked another street brawl between opposing ends of the political spectrum — violence that has become a regular feature of the Trump years and gives signs of spiraling upward, particularly in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville.

“I applaud the more than 7,000 people who came out today to peacefully oppose bigotry, hatred and racism that we saw on display in Charlottesville,” Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín said in a statement. ” … However, the violence that small group of protesters engaged in against residents and the police, including throwing smoke bombs, is unacceptable. Fighting hate with hate does not work and only makes each side more entrenched in their ideological camps.”

How some ‘antifa’ protesters are using black bloc tactics

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Black bloc tactics are used by “antifascist action” or “antifa” protesters. Here’s what that means. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

On Sunday, police in Berkeley maintained a strict perimeter around the area in the beginning of the afternoon, including enforcing an emergency city rule outlawing sticks and other potential weapons from the park. Fifty officers were spread out at the area’s four entrances, according to the Daily Californian.

But antifa protesters — armed with sticks and shields and clad in shin pads and gloves — largely routed the security checks and by 1:30 p.m. police reportedly left the security line at the Center Street and Milvaia Street entrance to the park. Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood told the AP the decision was strategic — a confrontation was sure to spark more violence between the protesters and police.

“No need for a confrontation over a grass patch,” Greenwood said.

Demonstrator Joey Gibson, second from left, is chased by anti-fascists during a free-speech rally Aug. 27 in Berkeley, Calif. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Joey Gibson was among the right-wing activists assaulted Sunday. Gibson, the leader of the Oregon-based Patriot Prayer group, had planned to hold a “Freedom Rally” at Crissy Field Beach. Gibson previously told the L.A. Times his group was not “white supremacist” but “feared that extreme or racist figures might try to co-opt his event.”

Yet, as with other planned right-wing events in the wake of Charlottesville, Saturday’s rally drew controversy in the San Francisco area, with one group stockpiling dog feces to lay at the scene on Saturday.

Last Friday, Gibson canceled the event because of the mounting pressure. “It doesn’t seem safe; a lot of people’s lives are going to be in danger tomorrow,” he told Unite America First.

Attention shifted to Sunday’s “No to Marxism in America” event. However, last week, that event’s organizer, Amber Cummings, also signaled the event was off due to the growing tensions. “I stress I DO NOT WANT ANYONE COMING and if they do you will be turned away, I’m sorry for this but I want this event to happen peacefully and I do not want to risk anyone getting harmed by terrorists,” Cummings wrote online, according to NBC Bay Area.

Play Video0:57

Violence breaks out as counter-protesters meet right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley

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Thousands of counter-protesters showed up at a right-wing rally in Berkeley, Calif., on Aug. 27, to counter-protest peacefully. About 100 masked, black-clad antifa and anarchists stormed over police barricades and attacked at least five right-wing demonstrators. (Reuters)

On Sunday, Cummings reportedly did not appear for her event, and anti-hate marchers far outnumbered the right-wing element that did make an appearance, the AP reported.

Although Gibson was reportedly seen being taken into custody, on Sunday the Patriot Prayer Facebook page stated “Joey is NOT in jail, and has NOT been arrested. He was cuffed and released after being shoved through the police line.” Gibson did not reply to a Facebook message seeking comment.

“We’re just puzzled as to why people consider violence a valid tactic,” Berkeley resident Kristin Leiumkuhler, 60, told SFGate. She, like others, had turned out with neighbors for a peaceful rally but left when things got ugly. “We felt disappointed and surprised by how many people were not in any way discreet about being with antifa — in fact being very bold and prepared to be violent.”

A man is hit multiple times with a bike lock in Berkeley, Calif., on April 15. The Antifa member with the bike lock was later identified as former philosophy professor Eric Clanton, who was charged with four counts of assault on three people. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

The extremist anarchist-communist group Antifa has been in the headlines because of recent violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia. Yet while the organization has been applauded by some left-leaning news outlets for including white nationalists and neo-Nazis in its list of targets, the organization wasn’t always about targeting “fascism,” as it claims.

The organization was initially part of the Soviet Union’s front operations to bring about communist dictatorship in Germany, and it worked to label all rival parties as “fascist.”

The organization can be traced to the “united front” of the Soviet Union’s Communist International (Comintern) during the Third World Congress in Moscow in June and July 1921, according to the German booklet “80 Years of Anti-Fascist Action” by Bernd Langer, published by the Association for the Promotion of Anti-Fascist Culture. Langer is a former member of the Autonome Antifa, formerly one of Germany’s largest Antifa organizations, which disbanded in 2004.

The Soviet Union was among the world’s most violent dictatorships, killing an estimated 20 million people, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” published by Harvard University Press. The Soviet regime is second only to the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, which killed an estimated 65 million people.

Anti-fascism is a strategy rather than an ideology.

— Bernd Langer, former member, Autonome Antifa

The idea of the united front strategy was to bring together left-wing organizations in order to incite communist revolution. The Soviets believed that following Russia’s revolution in 1917, communism would next spread to Germany, since Germany had the second-largest communist party, the KPD (Communist Party of Germany).

It was at the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern in 1922 that the plan took shape. Moscow formed the slogan “To the Masses” for its united front strategy and sought to join together the various communist and workers’ parties of Germany under a single ideological banner that it controlled.

“The ‘unified front’ thus did not mean an equal cooperation between different organizations, but the dominance of the workers’ movement by the communists,” Langer writes.

After its formation under the “united front” strategy of the Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin in 1921, Antifa came more directly under the control of the Soviets when the Communist Party of Germany became a Stalinist party and financially dependent on Moscow.

Benito Mussolini, a Marxist and socialist who had been expelled from Italy’s Socialist Party in 1914 for his support for World War I, later founded the fascist movement as his own political party. He took power through his “March on Rome” in October 1922.

In Germany, Adolf Hitler became head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) in 1921 and mounted a coup attempt in 1923.

The KPD decided to use the banner of anti-fascism to form a movement. Langer notes, though, that to the KPD, the ideas of “fascism” and “anti-fascism” were “undifferentiated,” and the term “fascism” served merely as rhetoric meant to support their aggressive opposition.

Both the communist and fascist systems were based in collectivism and state-planned economies. Both also proposed systems wherein the individual was heavily controlled by a powerful state, and both were responsible for large-scale atrocities and genocide.

The 2016 annual report by Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), notes the same point: From the viewpoint of the “left-wing extremist,” the label of “fascism” as pushed by Antifa often does not refer to actual fascism, but is merely a label assigned to “capitalism.”

While leftist extremists claim to be fighting “fascism” while launching their attacks on other groups, the report states the term “fascism” has a double meaning under the extreme-left ideology, indicating the “fight against the capitalist system.”

This held true from the beginning, according to Langer. For the communists in Germany, “anti-fascism” merely meant “anti-capitalism.” He notes the labels merely served as “battle concepts” under a “political vocabulary.”

A member of the Antifa extremist group vandalizes a storefront in Nantes, France, on Feb. 14, 2014. (FRANK PERRY/AFP/Getty Images)

A description of Antifa on the BfV website notes that the organization still holds this same basic definition of capitalism as being “fascism.”

“They argue that the capitalist state produces fascism, or at least tolerates it. Therefore, anti-fascism is directed not only against actual or supposed right-wing extremists, but also always against the state and its representatives, in particular members of the security authorities,” it states.

Langer notes that historically, by labeling the anti-capitalist interests of the communist movement as “anti-fascism,” the KPD was able to use this rhetoric to label all other political parties as fascist. Langer states, “According to this, the other parties opposed to the KPD were fascist, especially the SPD [Social Democratic Party of Germany].”

Thus, in what would today be considered ironic, the group that the communist “anti-fascists” most heavily targeted under their new label of “fascism” was the social democrats.

On Aug. 23, 1923, the Politburo of the Communist Party of Russia held a secret meeting, and according to Langer, “all the important officials spoke out for an armed insurrection in Germany.”

The KPD was at the front of this call, launching a movement under the banner of United Front Action and branding its armed “anti-fascist” wing under the name Antifaschistische Aktion (“Antifascist Action”), which Antifa still carries in Germany, and from which the Antifa organizations in other countries are rooted.

The Unity Congress of Antifa, held at the Philharmonic Opera House in Berlin, on July 10, 1932. The congress was organized by the Communist Party of Germany as a rallying point to defeat the Social Democratic Party and the Nazi Party. Antifa labeled both parties as “fascist,” which was a political label they used for all rival parties. (Public Domain)

At this time, Hitler and his Nazi Party had begun to emerge on the world stage, and the Nazi Party employed a similar group to Antifaschistische Aktion for political violence and intimidation, called the “brownshirts.”

Antifaschistische Aktion, meanwhile, began to attract some members who opposed the arrival of actual fascism in Germany and who did not subscribe to—or were potentially unaware of—the organization’s ties to the Soviet Union.

However, the violence instigated by Antifaschistische Aktion largely had an opposite effect. The ongoing tactics of violence and intimidation of all rival systems under the Antifa movement, along with its violent ideology, drove many people toward fascism.

“The Communists’ violent revolutionary rhetoric, promising the destruction of capitalism and the creation of a Soviet Germany, terrified the country’s middle class, who knew only too well what had happened to their counterparts in Russia after 1918,” writes Richard J. Evans in “The Third Reich in Power.”

Anti-fascism is directed not only against actual or supposed right-wing extremists, but also always against the state and its representatives, in particular members of the security authorities.

— Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

“Appalled at the failure of the government to solve the crisis, and frightened into desperation by the rise of the Communists,” he states, “they began to leave the squabbling little factions of the conventional political right and gravitate towards the Nazis instead.”

Langer notes that from the beginning, the KPD was a member of the Comintern, and “within a few years, it became a Stalinist party,” both ideologically and logistically. He states that it even became “financially dependent on the Moscow headquarters.”

Leaders of the KPD, with Antifa as their on-the-ground movement for violence and intimidation of rival political parties, fell under the command of the Soviet apparatus. Many KPD leaders would later become leaders in the communist German Democratic Republic, including of its infamous Ministry for State Security, the Stasi.

As Langer states, “anti-fascism is a strategy rather than an ideology.”

“It was brought into play in Germany in the 1920s by the KPD”, not as a legitimate movement against the fascism that would later arise in Germany, but instead “as an anti-capitalist concept of struggle,” he writes.

Antifa is a radical political movement of autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist groups, including in the United States.[2][3][4] They have been described as being left wing to far-left.[5][6] The salient feature of self-described antifa groups is to oppose fascism by direct action, including violence if need be.[6] Antifa groups tend to be anti-government and anti-capitalist;[7] its adherents are mostly socialists, anarchists, and communists who, according to Mark Bray, a historian at Dartmouth College and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, “reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy. Instead they advocate popular opposition to fascism as we witnessed in Charlottesville.”[8]

According to The Economist, the “word Antifa has its roots in Anti-Fascist Action, a name taken up by European political movements in the 1930s” which was revived in the 1990s, particularly in Germany.[9][10]Peter Beinartwrites that “in the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism.”[5] Antifa groups are known for militant protest tactics, including property damage and physical violence.[11][12][13][2] Antifa focuses more on fighting far-right ideology directly than on encouraging pro-left policy.[6]

Activity

Antifa is composed of autonomous groups, and thus has no formal organization.[5][20] Antifa groups either form loose support networks, such as NYC Antifa, or operate independently.[21] Activists typically organize protests via social media and through websites and list-serves.[5][20] According to Salon.com it is an organizing strategy, not a group of people,[22] While its membership numbers are hard to pin down, since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency members and experts have both stated that the movement has boomed; approximately 200 chapters are currently extant in the U.S., of varying sizes and levels of engagement.[14]

It is commonly associated with a willingness to engage in a show of force. Antifa groups, along with black bloc activists, were among those who protested the 2016 election of Donald Trump.[5][23][24] During the inauguration celebrations mask-wearing “black bloc” protestors “rage[d] across the area just outside” of the security perimeter, “smashing windows and burning cars.”[25]

According to Peter Beinart, Antifa activists “combat white supremacism not by trying to change government policy but through direct action. They try to publicly identify white supremacists and get them fired from their jobs and evicted from their apartments,” in addition to “disrupt(ing) white-supremacist rallies, including by force.”[26]

Notable street protests and violence

Antifa protesters participated in the 2017 Berkeley protests on February 1, where they gained mainstream media attention, “throwing Molotov cocktails and smashing windows;” causing $100,000 worth of damage.[28][2][20] Later, two Antifa groups threatened to disrupt the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade after hearing the Multnomah County Republican Party would participate. The parade organizers received an anonymous email, saying, “You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely”. The email also said that 200 people would “rush into the parade” and “drag and push” those marching with the Republican Party. The two groups denied having anything to do with the email. The parade ended up being canceled by the organizers due to safety concerns.[29][30]

Antifa counter protestors at the far-right 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August “certainly used clubs and dyed liquids against the white supremacists.”[31] Journalist Adele Stan interviewed an Antifa protester at the rally who said that the sticks carried by Antifa protesters are a justifiable countermeasure to the fact that “the right has a goon squad.”[32] Some Antifa participants at the Charlottesville rally chanted that counter-protesters should “punch a Nazi in the mouth.”[33] Antifa participants also protected Cornel West and various clergy from attack by the white supremacist. West said that he felt that Antifa had “saved his life”;[34] clergy expressed similar sentiments.[35] Another religious leader stated that Antifa defended the First United Methodist Church, where the Charlottesville Clergy Collective provided refreshments, music and training to the counter-protesters, and “chased (the white supremacists) off with sticks”.[34][36]

Antifa also participated in the protests in Phoenix, Arizona on August 22, on the occasion of a Trump rally. They were the only protest group singled out by President Trump: ““They’ve got clubs and they’ve got everything,” he said of the far-left anti-fascist group accused of instigating violence against white supremacists and other members of the “alt-right.” “ANTEEFAH.” His peculiar pronunciation inspired a meme inspired by the 1958 song “Tequila“.[37]

At the Berkeley protests on August 27, an estimated hundred Antifa protestors among a crowd of 2,000 – 4,000 counter-protestors attacked the “handful” of alt-right demonstrators who showed up for a “Say No to Marxism” rally that had been cancelled by organizers due to security concerns. Antifa activists, beat and kicked the unarmed handful of right-wing demonstrators, and threatened to smash the cameras of journalists.[28][38][28]

Approaches

The nature and activities of Antifa have caused some debate among anarchists; the prominent anarcho-communist website It’s Going Down published a critique of Antifa in November 2016 originally from Lucha No Feik, entitled “On Antifa: Some Critical Notes”.[39] The article criticised Antifa for essentially being a reactive, rather than a proactive force. The article argues that Antifa are too hyper-focused on micro Neo-Nazi groups or single figures such as President Donald Trump, instead of “analyzing the structural nature of our racist society.”[39] The article stated that the Antifa’s ideological position was “but a few steps removed from the Liberal position that we should just all get along.”[39] It also pointed out that Antifa did not protest against the administration of President Barack Obama.[39] This elicited a response from three active participants in the movement with “What do US Antifascists Actually Believe?”, where they stated, “Mobilizing large radical movements against neoliberal (or populist) capitalism is not the focus of anti-fascism; this is the work of the anarchist and anti-capitalist movements as a whole.”[40] The movement has also been criticised by mainstream media.[41]

According to National Public Radio, “People who speak for the Antifa movement acknowledge they sometimes carry clubs and sticks,” and their “approach is confrontational.”[33] CNN describes Antifa as “known for causing damage to property during protests.”[2] Scott Crow, described by CNN as “a longtime Antifa organizer,” argues that destroying property is not a form of violence.[2]

According to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino, Antifa activists participate in violent actions because “they believe that elites are controlling the government and the media. So they need to make a statement head-on against the people who they regard as racist.”[2] According to Antifa organizer Crow, Antifa is based on the idea of direct action, “The idea in Antifa is that we go where they (right-wingers) go. That hate speech is not free speech. That if you are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then you do not have the right to do that. And so we go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are, because we don’t believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece.”[2]

Criticism

Antifa has been subjected to smear campaigns by elements of the far right and alt-right. In August 2017 the image of British actress Anna Friel portraying a battered woman in a 2007 Women’s Aid anti-domestic violence campaign was re-purposed using fake Antifa Twitteraccounts organized by way of 4chan, an investigation by Bellingcat found. The image is captioned “53% of white women voted for Trump, 53% of white women should look like this” and includes the Antifa flag; another image featuring an injured woman is captioned “She chose to be a Nazi. Choices have consequences,” and includes the hashtag #PunchANazi. Although the smear campaign was not regarded as particularly sophisticated, investigator Elliot Higgins remarked to the BBC that “This was a transparent and quite pathetic attempt, but I wouldn’t be surprised if white nationalist groups try to mount more sophisticated attacks in the future.” [42]

In August 2017 The White House petitioning system We the People gathered more than 100,000 signatures requesting Antifa be classified as a terrorist organization in three days, and perforce shall receive an official review and response from the White House; at over 300,000 signatures, it is currently the third most-signed submission posted[43]. The originator, who goes by the nom de plume Microchip, said to Politico that getting conservatives to share and discuss the petition was the entire point, rather than prompting any concrete action by the government.[44]